The Defendant | Page 8

be a
married bachelor or a white negro. He is wandering in a hungry search
for a certain exhilaration which he can only have when he has the
courage to cease from wandering. Men knew better than this in old
times--in the time, for example, of Shakespeare's heroes. When
Shakespeare's men are really celibate they praise the undoubted
advantages of celibacy, liberty, irresponsibility, a chance of continual

change. But they were not such fools as to continue to talk of liberty
when they were in such a condition that they could be made happy or
miserable by the moving of someone else's eyebrow. Suckling classes
love with debt in his praise of freedom.
'And he that's fairly out of both Of all the world is blest. He lives as in
the golden age, When all things made were common; He takes his pipe,
he takes his glass, He fears no man or woman.'
This is a perfectly possible, rational and manly position. But what have
lovers to do with ridiculous affectations of fearing no man or woman?
They know that in the turning of a hand the whole cosmic engine to the
remotest star may become an instrument of music or an instrument of
torture. They hear a song older than Suckling's, that has survived a
hundred philosophies. 'Who is this that looketh out of the window, fair
as the sun, clear as the moon, terrible as an army with banners?'
As we have said, it is exactly this backdoor, this sense of having a
retreat behind us, that is, to our minds, the sterilizing spirit in modern
pleasure. Everywhere there is the persistent and insane attempt to
obtain pleasure without paying for it. Thus, in politics the modern
Jingoes practically say, 'Let us have the pleasures of conquerors
without the pains of soldiers: let us sit on sofas and be a hardy race.'
Thus, in religion and morals, the decadent mystics say: 'Let us have the
fragrance of sacred purity without the sorrows of self-restraint; let us
sing hymns alternately to the Virgin and Priapus.' Thus in love the
free-lovers say: 'Let us have the splendour of offering ourselves without
the peril of committing ourselves; let us see whether one cannot
commit suicide an unlimited number of times.'
Emphatically it will not work. There are thrilling moments, doubtless,
for the spectator, the amateur, and the aesthete; but there is one thrill
that is known only to the soldier who fights for his own flag, to the
ascetic who starves himself for his own illumination, to the lover who
makes finally his own choice. And it is this transfiguring self-discipline
that makes the vow a truly sane thing. It must have satisfied even the
giant hunger of the soul of a lover or a poet to know that in
consequence of some one instant of decision that strange chain would

hang for centuries in the Alps among the silences of stars and snows.
All around us is the city of small sins, abounding in backways and
retreats, but surely, sooner or later, the towering flame will rise from
the harbour announcing that the reign of the cowards is over and a man
is burning his ships.
* * * * *
A DEFENCE OF SKELETONS
Some little time ago I stood among immemorial English trees that
seemed to take hold upon the stars like a brood of Ygdrasils. As I
walked among these living pillars I became gradually aware that the
rustics who lived and died in their shadow adopted a very curious
conversational tone. They seemed to be constantly apologizing for the
trees, as if they were a very poor show. After elaborate investigation, I
discovered that their gloomy and penitent tone was traceable to the fact
that it was winter and all the trees were bare. I assured them that I did
not resent the fact that it was winter, that I knew the thing had
happened before, and that no forethought on their part could have
averted this blow of destiny. But I could not in any way reconcile them
to the fact that it was winter. There was evidently a general feeling that
I had caught the trees in a kind of disgraceful deshabille, and that they
ought not to be seen until, like the first human sinners, they had
covered themselves with leaves. So it is quite clear that, while very few
people appear to know anything of how trees look in winter, the actual
foresters know less than anyone. So far from the line of the tree when it
is bare appearing harsh and severe, it is luxuriantly indefinable to an
unusual degree; the fringe of the forest melts away like a vignette. The
tops of two or three high trees when they are leafless are